I swallowed down the anger. It would only make things worse, and besides—she was already back to sorting the takeout and taking out proper plates and bowls. “If you insist on pursuing some farfetched dream, why not go for modeling?” She shot me an assessing look over her shoulder and pursed her lips in disappointment. “You might be able to get some work there if you lost a few pounds.”
But it was doubtful, her tone said. Highly doubtful.
“Go,” she said, shooing me away with one hand as she kept at her task. “I don’t want Steven to think I raised a slob.”
That ended the lovely bonding moment and the conversation was officially over.
“Don’t worry, he won’t see me.” I headed back over to her and caved to the urge to snag my container, along with some chopsticks and the fortune cookie that my mother couldn’t seem to get them to stop including no matter how many times she’d asked. “I’ll eat in my room.”
A little while later, I was lying on my bed, full on chicken and battling a serious case of nerves.
It was just anxiety. I got this all the time. In public, I knew how to handle it. How to ignore the racing heart and the sweaty palms and plaster on a smile. It was harder when I was home alone—harder still when I was alone in my room listening to my mom laugh and talk to some stranger before they went out on the town.
I should have gone down. It would have been best to meet the next Daddy Dearest before things went too far.
Not that I could stop her if she were dead-set on hooking the poor sop, but still—forewarned was forearmed and I could sense the nasty ones a mile away. My mom usually clued in eventually so luckily none of the creeps had made it to the altar.
My mom did have some standards.
She also wasn’t totally evil. I might have joked with Hannah that my mom was some cruel witch, but she wasn’t. She just wanted what was best for me and she thought acting was a lost cause.
And maybe she’s right.
Sure, I was a star at our school, but that was hardly indicative of real life, now was it? I was a big fish in a small pond. If I went off to New York or Los Angeles, would I really have what it took to stand out in any crowd?
I sat up quickly, the tension in my chest threatening to crush me if I just lay there and let it.
I reached for my laptop and flipped it open. Work. I should focus on work. I had a new monologue to find and homework still to do…
Which was why I was scrolling through Facebook, obviously. Social media was a procrastinator’s best friend and at a time like this, when I was already on edge…
It was a no-brainer that I’d end up on the scholarship competition’s page. Like picking a scab, I found myself seeking out the competition.
Was I proud of myself for stalking the enemy? No. Was it useful in any way, shape, or form to go to their pages and see just how pretty they were? No. Did it do me any good to know that Wendy Weisman also starred as Sally in Cabaret in her high school production? Definitely not.
But I couldn’t stop.
And after way too long, I’d thoroughly researched the acting competition and come to one realization.
There was a very real chance that I wouldn’t win.
My mom could be brutal, but that was because she was brutally honest. And if she thought I didn’t have what it took…what were the odds that some random strangers judging the monologues would disagree?
I shut my eyes tight as a pain hit me smack in the chest.
Maybe I should give up.
It wasn’t the first time I’d thought it, and it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes I honestly wanted to…but I couldn’t.
Something in me wouldn’t, no matter how much I wished I could.
Maybe it was stubbornness. Or maybe I was just a masochist and a glutton for punishment. Maybe that urge to pick at a scab extended to rejection. Like I knew it was coming but I wouldn’t be satisfied until I felt the death blow.
I rubbed a hand over my eyes, which were gritty and tired from staring at a screen for so long.
For no reason I could ever explain as long as I lived—my brain chose that particular moment to think about Jax freakin’ Hadley.
Jax. A guy who’d basically ignored me ever since our short-lived fling. I frowned, staring into space at his utter weirdness in the hallway today.
He hadn’t so much as smiled at me since I’d ended things sophomore year and now today he’d decided…what? That I needed a knight in shining armor?
You have nothing to worry about, he’d said.
He’d cut me out of his life and treated me like a ghost for two years and suddenly today he decided to be nice?
I’ve got your back.
Oh really? Since when? I clenched the fabric of my duvet in my fists. What did he think…I was some sort of victim?
Ha!
He couldn’t have been more wrong. The very idea that I needed his help to deal with a simpleton like Ryan was insulting.
I dealt with my own problems, thank you very much. I was so not a victim.
Oddly enough, I found myself sitting up straighter, the crazy pounding in my chest no longer fueled entirely by anxiety but good old self-righteous indignation.
It felt good. It felt way better than moping here in self-pity and doubt. I stretched my neck one way and then the other as I released my death grip on the duvet and forced my logical brain back into action.
It was time to get
